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For quite awhile now, I’ve been searching for a magnetic qi charger for the M3, with a suction mount that would allow mounting to the back of the screen, so the phone could be placed somewhere closer to line of sight (for waze, not for texting!). Looking at Waze, way down in the phone dock cubby, was just not safe, and none of the current or proposed qi charging solutions for this area are very good (due to phone movement, heating, etc.)

My initial requirements:

1. Magnetic. Don’t like those fiddly “claw” clamps that detract from the minimalism of the M3 cabin.

2. Suction mount. As others have done with gooseneck mounts (see @chanmanx2k's photo), I want to be able to attach the mount to the back of the screen, again minimizing visibility of the mount and cabling.

4. Cooling. Either by placement near the vent, or built in. Navigation also causes heating, resulting in battery degradation and lower charging efficiency.

5. Capable of rotation. Many magnetic qi chargers only support portrait mode.

Surprisingly, this has been harder than I thought it would be. After months of looking, I finally came across the XVIDA charging system, which meets all of my basic requirements. I first contacted the company, to see if the mount could accommodate the 180 degree range of motion that would be necessary to mount it on the back of the screen. A friendly employee named Mark, wrote back almost immediately, and provided proof of concept:

Video and image credits: XVIDA

I immediately ordered the mount, and the magnetic case, sold separately, for my iPhone X. Unlike most magnetic mounts, that use a metal plate attached to your phone, the XVIDA takes things to the next level: it uses a specially designed magnetic plate, built into a case (or you can buy a $15 magnetic plate to attach to your phone or slip behind a thin case), to almost magically “dock” your phone to the mount. Literally, you just put your phone close to the mount, and it instantly gets locked into perfect position for mounting AND optimal charging efficiency. It’s amazing!
Image credit: XVIDA

When I finally got the mount, I began playing around with placement around the screen. The suction has a reusable adhesive, to help it stick. Unfortunately, I had originally wanted to place the mount on the bottom of the screen, with the phone suspended off the lower left side, but the curvature of the back of the screen, due to the base that mounts the screen to the dashboard, prevents that. Try as I may, it kept falling off in this location. Another obstacle to the under-screen mounting position, was the phone dock flip lid, which would collide with the mount, when opened and closed, if placed too centrally.

So, giving up on the under-mounting locations, I switched my attention to the upper portion of the screen, and it was successful. The adherence to the flatter upper portion of the screen back, is very strong. I experimented with different placements, and since I wanted primarily landscape orientation, I chose the upper left corner, with a slight overlap. In this position, nothing important gets obscured by the phone, and I still have a perfect unobstructed view through the windshield.

The last photo shows the view from the driver's position. You can see that I still have a completely unobstructed view out the windshield. Rotating to portrait does cause a little intrusion over the hood, and depending on the size of your phone, it can be hard to find a position that doesn't do this, or result in part of the phone screen being partially blocked by the steering wheel. Personally, I like the landscape orientation for this reason, and also because in this position, I can use the phone camera as a low rent dash cam.

Behind the charging pad, there's a built in fan, that is absolutely silent. Whether this cools it down or not, I honestly can't tell, but another advantage of this position, is that it does receive some ventilation from the dashboard air vent.

Charging is as good as my other fast Qi chargers, and I believe this should be supplying 10 watts of power from the 2A 5W front USB port (although iPhone fast charging maxes out at 7.5W). Even while using Waze and streaming music over Bluetooth, my battery showed a slow but steady increase in charge.

The mount arm is extremely stable, with minimal jostling over rough roads, and the magnetic attachment is very strong. I have zero worries that the phone is going to fall off going over bumps.

As for the case, I like it, as it's very similar to the Speck case it replaced. Super thin, understated matte black TPU. It feels good in hand, but I do have to say that I would have preferred a more grippy, rubbery texture.

Image credit: XVIDA

Conclusion: I've only had this setup for about a week, but so far, I really, really like it. I love being able to just throw my phone up against the charging plate and have it click into position and start charging. It's remarkably satisfying. I love how I no longer have to fiddle with the lightning cable and phone dock every time I get in and out of the car. And I love having Waze right at my fingertips, and right in my line of sight. Is it perfect? No. I wish the micro USB cable plugged into the base of the mount, rather than into the charging pad, to further minimize the appearance of any cords (even though you can't see the cord when the phone is on the charger). I wish the "arm" could rotate on the suction disc, so you could re-position it without having to "un-suck" the suction cup and potentially weaken the adhesive, but then again, I think this could also introduce some wobbliness that I wouldn't want, so never mind, I can live with it the way it is. I wish the 360 degree rotation knob was a quick release lever instead of a knob. I wish the rotate and swivel head had just a tad more range of motion. Finally, yes, it is a little expensive, but the quality is high, and I'm willing to spend more for something that looks and feels like it belongs in a Tesla. Overall, this thing is close to perfect, and I think, right now, the best option out there for a magnetic Qi charger for the Model 3. Highly recommended.

Is the magnet strong enough to hold the weight of a charging cable? Not all phones have wireless charging. I have a Pixel 2 XL

Click to expand...

I definitely think so, but they don't make a case for your phone. You could probably use the magnetic card, as it looks like it's capable of holding a big thick Otter box encased phone:
I just googled the weight of the Google Pixel 2 XL, and it's listed as 175g. An iPhone 8 Plus is 202g, and it can hold that. So yes, I would say the magnets should easily be able to accommodate this, plus a charging cable.

Does the mount allow you to rotate to a vertical orientation also the way you have it set up in the corner? Or only horizontally? If it can only be horizontal, is it easy to rotate?

Click to expand...

Yes! You just loosen the knob behind the ball joint, rotate it, and re-tighten.

Where I have it, currently, portrait mode would cause the top of the phone to protrude slightly above the lower edge of the windshield. Probably not enough to be a problem, but ideally, you might want to rotate the suction cup and arm counterclockwise, so that the phone sits a little lower along the left edge of the screen, but you can't go too low, or the steering wheel starts to obscure the lower part of the phone. This is with an iPhone X. Smaller phones will have an easier time finding that sweet spot; larger phones, a more difficult time.

Wonderful. Considering how large phones have gotten, and the fact that most people have a case on their phones making them even bigger, I find the phone cubby fairly useless. It's way too low to use your phone (Waze, etc), Bluetooth still requires you to fiddle with your phone a little (to start the music, change genres or playlists, etc), and it's too small to accommodate two large screen phones without wireless charging.

Does the mount allow you to rotate to a vertical orientation also the way you have it set up in the corner? Or only horizontally? If it can only be horizontal, is it easy to rotate?

Click to expand...

Here’s the phone rotated to portrait mode:

This was taken from my eye level. I think if I wanted portrait mode most of the time, I’d adjust the mount to hold the phone a little lower to the side of the screen, similar to how @chanmanx2k has his phone mounted, here:

I was also looking for something like this, but not at that price. They are definitely price gouging, and they can, since they are the only ones with a suction mounted magnetic wireless charger. Having to buy a case for this is really crappy - im sure if you bought some thin neodymium magnets and stuck them under your current case, it would work fine. I did that when i built my own magnetic wireless charger, before they were cool

I was also looking for something like this, but not at that price. They are definitely price gouging, and they can, since they are the only ones with a suction mounted magnetic wireless charger. Having to buy a case for this is really crappy - im sure if you bought some thin neodymium magnets and stuck them under your current case, it would work fine. I did that when i built my own magnetic wireless charger, before they were cool

Click to expand...

They also sell a $15 magnetic card. For the convenience, and innovative magnetic locking, I find this money well spent. As you said, no one else is doing this, and they really nailed it in the design and engineering.

I'm surprised that it still charges wireless through that metal card.
Could probably try this one and bend the metal frame and double stick tape it to the back of the screen. Would be less "stuff" in the back with this method.

BTW, just checked out your mod, @ranova — looks like you really did have a very similar solution! Definitely forward thinking.

Your cost to build, though, $90, is pretty close to what you would pay for this setup with the magnetic card ($69 + $15), and even though they’re undoubtedly paying a lot less for overseas production, you figure they still need to pay for employees, office space, marketing, etc., and turn a profit, so their pricing seems fair, imho.

That said, I wasn’t thrilled paying this much for a phone charger, but now that I have it, I’m 100% sure it’s the solution I was looking for.

I'm surprised that it still charges wireless through that metal card.
Could probably try this one and bend the metal frame and double stick tape it to the back of the screen. Would be less "stuff" in the back with this method.

That would definitely be a cheaper solution, but it lacks fast charging, cooling, and easy rotation (or repositioning), and although subjective, doesn’t look very premium. Reviews on Amazon also comment on how it doesn’t hold very well. But cool that there are others working on this type of magnetic locking mechanism.

As for the XVIDA magnetic card, I don’t think it’s metal. You can see in this graphic, how the magnets are placed in the corners, with the induction coil in the center:

I don’t think this image is posting here correctly (it’s supposed to be showing the breakdown of the charging pad, from front to back). You can see it properly here:

BTW, just checked out your mod, @ranova — looks like you really did have a very similar solution! Definitely forward thinking.

Your cost to build, though, $90, is pretty close to what you would pay for this setup with the magnetic card ($69 + $15), and even though they’re undoubtedly paying a lot less for overseas production, you figure they still need to pay for employees, office space, marketing, etc., and turn a profit, so their pricing seems fair, imho.

That said, I wasn’t thrilled paying this much for a phone charger, but now that I have it, I’m 100% sure it’s the solution I was looking for.

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Thanks. To be fair, that project was over 2 years ago - a lot of the stuff can be bought for much cheaper nowadays.

Ive been looking for a magnetic wireless pad with the ball joint, but the one in the OP is the first one. Hopefully a bunch of knock offs come out soon for something more reasonable ($30 or so) - and I will buy. Right now, Im content with the Jeda pad

Charging is as good as my other fast Qi chargers, and I believe this should be supplying 10 watts of power from the 2A 5W front USB port (although iPhone fast charging maxes out at 7.5W).

Click to expand...

Are you still connecting to the front USB port for this solution? Apparently those USB ports can only supply about 1.4 amps with 5 watts (in contrast to the rear seat USB ports which do 2.2.) Presumably this is because these ports also do connectivity to the audio system and this may be a limitation of that.
USB testing:

If you look at the Jeda and RPM wireless charging solutions, you see they have workarounds for the power limitation. Jeda supplies a portable battery while the RPM connects back to a charger in the cigarette lighter (which requires a simple process of removing the side molding to run a hidden wire. )
I think the RPM approach is car superior.

I think your XVIDA solution would work great stealing the RPM idea of routing the power to high amp cigarette lighter USB adapter. You'll need the USB adapter and a long, thin cable. I assume the XVIDA mount allows you to use any standard USB cable?

Are you still connecting to the front USB port for this solution? Apparently those USB ports can only supply about 1.4 amps with 5 watts (in contrast to the rear seat USB ports which do 2.2.) Presumably this is because these ports also do connectivity to the audio system and this may be a limitation of that.
USB testing:

If you look at the Jeda and RPM wireless charging solutions, you see they have workarounds for the power limitation. Jeda supplies a portable battery while the RPM connects back to a charger in the cigarette lighter (which requires a simple process of removing the side molding to run a hidden wire. )
I think the RPM approach is car superior.

I think your XVIDA solution would work great stealing the RPM idea of routing the power to high amp cigarette lighter USB adapter. You'll need the USB adapter and a long, thin cable. I assume the XVIDA mount allows you to use any standard USB cable?

Click to expand...

I could be wrong, but that YouTube video was made in January, before the amperage of the front USB ports was bumped to 2A. I also misspoke in my original post; I should have said 5 volts, rather than 5 watts. So the wattage from each front USB port is 10 watts, which is enough for iPhone fast charging, but not enough for phones that can exceed 10 watts. For those that need more than 10 watts, I agree that routing power from the 12V outlet makes the most sense.

I still LOVE this solution, as the phone position couldn’t be better for line of sight and accessibility. I can toggle waze and pandora with my fingertips, without taking my eyes off the road, or my hands off the wheel.

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